BlackBerry Takes to the Airport

Associated Press
01.15.02

BOSTON -- A pager-sized device that's more likely to be found in a Wall Street briefcase than on a state trooper's belt may take its place in the war against terrorism.

Logan International Airport is the first in the nation to test the BlackBerry as an electronic gateway to state and federal criminal databases, giving law enforcement officers the kind of immediate information resource they've longed for, but lacked.

The wireless devices, made by Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion since 1999, are ubiquitous in the corporate world, particularly by businesspeople who spend a lot of time away from their desks and need to check e-mail or surf the Web.

The BlackBerries being tested at Logan are packaged with software that lets officers send encrypted queries to state and federal databases over a wireless network and get responses in less than a minute.

State trooper Barry Newell carries his BlackBerry on patrols around Logan. With the device, Newell can check whether a suspicious person is on the FBI's terrorist watch list without using a radio, dispatcher, cruiser or computer.

"The beauty of this system is you can do it yourself," Newell said.

Logan officials are using the system as part of their effort to strengthen security after 10 terrorists boarded two passenger jets on Sept. 11 and crashed them into the World Trade Center.

The BlackBerry patrols began two months ago after Aether Systems, which makes the PocketBlue software, offered to let Logan try the $89-a-month devices for free. Aether said three other unnamed airports are considering similar tests.

At Logan, 10 troopers who'd been trained in counterterrorism were taught to scroll through the BlackBerry's menu and send simple queries to a distant computer about a suspect's criminal history. A "hit" automatically sends an alarm to other troopers carrying a BlackBerry.

It's more efficient than a phone or radio query.

"If you go and ask for a couple of registration checks through a dispatcher, they'll get a little upset because you're adding to the workload," said Gerald Burke, director of the New England Law Enforcement Management Institute.

Newell said he's identified several stolen cars in Logan's parking using the device.

Whether the BlackBerries could have helped prevent the terrorist attacks isn't clear because the watch list only came into being after Sept. 11, FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said.

"There was intelligence information out there," she said. "But the watch list as we know it, as of Sept. 11 ... did not exist."

State Police Capt. Thomas Robbins, Logan's interim public safety director, thinks the BlackBerry-toting troopers may become a permanent fixture at the airport, which is trying everything from facial recognition systems to training ticket agents to recognize suspicious activity.

Aether's PocketBlue software was launched in June and is now being used by law enforcement agencies in seven states, said David Grip, marketing director for the mobile government division of the company, which has headquarters in Owings Mills, Md.

"Since Sept. 11, there's now a focus within airports and port authorities to use the product," he said, adding Logan is the first airport to try it. Law enforcement agencies are also using the software in Ohio, Florida, California, Minnesota and the District of Columbia, he said.

There may be a market for the software, but, "there's a little bit of a feeding frenzy," said Tim Quillin, an analyst with Stephens Inc., in Little Rock, Ark.

Federal transportation officials are open to the experiment.

"We're interested and looking at anything that might improve transportation security," said Paul Takemoto, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.